Recent updates;
- I spoke to an African Journey keeper, and she said there have been multiple discussions about what to do with the zoos remaining cheetah, Davis but nothing has been official yet. It is possible they will get another cheetah, send Davis off to another zoo for breeding and get two new cheetahs and possibly getting rid of cheetahs and replacing them with another African species. The reason that has been discussed is because gastrointestinal disease is quite common in cheetahs and it’s been challenging to care for them. Davis currently is being treated for gastrointestinal disease just like Bud did but he doesn’t show any signs of it.
- With the passing of Frankie the Nigerian dwarf goat, the zoo is now at 9 Nigerian dwarf goats and 3 Pygmy goats. As Frankie was the zoo’s oldest goat, the oldest goat now is Moo, who is the brown and white Nigerian dwarf goat who is also 13 years old. The zoo does have a pretty old herd of goats all between 7-13 years old. I also spoke to keepers about the details on Frankie’s passing as it was never mentioned in the Facebook post. For quite a long time, he was dealing with weight loss that made him feel very skinny when you touched him. He was placed on medications as well as extra food to help him maintain a stable weight. However, it worsened with time and age and the cold and it would be much more challenging to treat in the winter so he was humanely euthanized for his well-being.
- As mentioned before a lot of the farmyard animals are getting up there in age, a keeper confirmed that the donkeys are only 18, which isn’t terribly old for them. They have been living at the zoo since they were about a year old. The alpacas are all at least 10, with the oldest one being 18 which is quite old for an alpaca.
- The white-breasted cormorants are in the African aviary, I’m not sure if that’s for the winter or permanent.
- With the colder temperatures, majority of animals were out at least the larger ones but the Amur leopard was once again a no-show. In the Marsh aviary and African aviary, I didn’t see any birds except the ducks. I know in the African aviary the other birds are taken off exhibit for the winter but not sure about Marsh aviary. Grizzly bears, Sulcata and leopard tortoises are off exhibit for the season and other than that the only no-shows were Amur leopard, blue duiker and eastern box turtle. The cheetah and Cape porcupine were actually pretty active at times.
